Quotes About Rights

It is often asserted that as woman has always been man's slave--subject--inferior--dependent, under all forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition. This might have some weight had not the vast majority of men also been enslaved for centuries to kings and popes, and orders of nobility, who, in the progress of civilization, have reached complete equality.

One-half of the people of this nation today are utterly powerless to blot from the statute books an unjust law, or to write there a new and a just one.

The change needed to restore good feeling cannot be reached by remanding women to the spinning wheel, and the contentment of her grandmother, but by conceding to her every right which the spirit of the age demands. Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother.

The only question left to be settled now is: Are women persons? And I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor yet we, the male citizens, but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. And we formed it, not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people–women as well as men.

Women, we might as well be dogs baying the moon as petitioners without the right to vote!

I have encountered riotous mobs and have been hung in effigy, but my motto is: Men's rights are nothing more. Women's rights are nothing less.

Trust me that as I ignore all law to help the slave, so will I ignore it all to protect an enslaved woman.

Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration [of Independence], is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied?

Make [your employers] understand that you are in their service as workers, not as women.

I have many things to say. My every right, constitutional, civil, political and judicial has been tramped upon. I have not only had no jury of my peers, but I have had no jury at all.

Here, in the first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can "the consent of the governed" be given, if the right to vote be denied?

Most public housing authorities automatically deny eligibility to anyone with a criminal record. No other country deprives people of the right to housing because of their criminal histories.

The American Bar Association documented 45,000 legal sanctions and restrictions imposed upon people with criminal records, a near-impenetrable barrier denying access to employment, student loans, housing, public assistance, custody of your children, the right to vote—in many places, the formerly incarcerated are even blocked from visiting a loved one in prison.

U.S. Soccer has no justification for paying us as little as they do.

To me, feminism is such a simple description: it's equal rights, economic rights, political rights, and social rights.

Trade, migration, and modern communications have given us networks of friends and associates in other countries. We owe them much, but the social contract with our fellow citizens at home brings unique rights and responsibilities that must sometimes take precedence, especially when they are as destitute as the world's poorest people.

I sing about social issues, not the boy-girl stuff.

When you're fighting for economic and social justice, you're always fighting for the minority.

Whatever I do, it will be fighting for social justice.

There is no justice in social justice, and there is no equality in social equality.

A primary justification for a basic income is social justice.

I consider myself a social justice person.

I won't mince words: President Donald Trump's inauguration means it is more important than ever that Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights redouble its commitment to the full scope of our humanitarian and social justice mission.